


Moonlight in Ithilien

by Hope



Category: Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-02-20
Updated: 2002-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:31:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hope/pseuds/Hope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The re-united fellowship bring up memories and recollections in Ithilien after the War of the Ring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moonlight in Ithilien

**Author's Note:**

> most of the italics are taken directly from the text (RotK), including the song.

"At last the glad day ended; and when the sun was gone and the round moon rode slowly above the mists of Anduin and flickered through the fluttering leaves, Frodo and Sam sat under the whispering trees amid the fragrance of fair Ithilien; and they talked deep into the night with Merry and Pippin and Gandalf, and after a while Legolas and Gimli joined them. There Frodo and Sam learned much of all that had happened to the Company after their fellowship was broken on that evil day at Parth Galen by Rauros Falls…"  
\- Return of the King (book VI, chapter IV: "Field of Cormallen")

* * *

A silence had fallen among them, silent except perhaps for the quiet crackling of Gandalf's pipe as he sucked in another lung-full of smoke, and of course the ever-present whispering of the leaves above and around them. Sam almost fancied they were trying to tell him something, calling, whispering softly… he strained to understand.

Frodo was unmoving in his lap. Unconsciously, Sam now realised with a slight blush, they had assumed the positions taken up by both of them in the later parts of their journey - Sam sitting upright and alert, his hands curled protectively around Frodo, whose head rested in his servant's - friend's - lap. Sam quickly looked up at his other companions, but Merry was fingering the small brown scar on his brow, head bowed, and Pippin was lying back on the grass, spreadeagled and staring at the winking of stars between the boughs, reflected by the glimmering sable-and-silver standard on his tunic. Gandalf seemed to be thoughtfully staring into space, the warm glow of his pipe lighting his face ruddily from below - a sharp contrast to the silvery sheen that stained the four hobbits.

Frodo's eyes closed, an oh so slight movement that Sam nevertheless detected, and he looked down with concern at his master's still face. Gandalf smiled softly. Frodo's face was pale, angular… unreadable except for the tenseness around his closed mouth, the slightly-closer-than-usual eyebrows, which rested on his skin (almost blue in the moonlight, and Sam remembered his vision in Galadriel's mirror not for the first time, shivering) like dark fingers pressing inwards.

Gandalf cleared his throat. "It may all be well and over, but nevertheless there are times to talk of such dark things as these, and this, I'm afraid, is not one of them."

There was a brief silence, then suddenly Pippin giggled, and Merry raised his head to look at him. Their eyes met.

"Do you remember, Merry, the look on Gimli's face when they rode up to Isengard and saw us there?"

Merry snorted. "Do _I _remember? You were asleep! Of _course _I remember, I was the one left to greet the royalty!" He leaned back on his elbows, reclining next to Pippin's sprawled figure.

"Yes, but I could _hear _what you were all saying. I could tell the look on his face just from his voice." Pippin chuckled again, then lowered his voice to a rough growl and mimicked: "You rascals, you woolly-footed and woolly-pated truants!"

Merry laughed. "Even so, it was nice to have _real _company again. I mean, no disrespect to Treebeard and all," he quickly added. "But after them orcs…" Frodo's brow tightened. "It was good to see some familiar faces."

It fell silent again, and the dark shroud that had nothing to do with the ethereal mists of Anduin crept back around them, oblivious to the younger hobbits' attempts to throw it off.

Sam's brown hand moved on Frodo's face, his thumb smoothing away the etchings on his master's forehead, the touch gentle for all his desire for it to reach the memories beneath. He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again, silently, remembering…

_"Do you remember that bit of rabbit, Mr Frodo? And our place under the warm bank in Captain Faramir's country, the day I saw an oliphaunt?"  
"No, I am afraid not, Sam. At least, I know that such things happened, but I cannot see them. No taste of food, no feel of water, no sound of wind, no memory of tree or grass or flower, no image of moon or star are left to me. I am naked in the dark, Sam, and there is no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I begin to see it even with my waking eyes, and all else fades…"*_

Frodo's words played again and again in his head, as if he were turning them over in his hands like taters, feeling and searching for one without eyes. But they were all bruised, all rotten. _ All else fades_. Perhaps not _all _else. A whisper of bitterness breathed in Sam's mind as he looked down at his master's drawn face, the features more angular, and whiter than a healthy hobbit's should be. The "elvish air" that Captain Faramir had perceived in Frodo seemed to have escaped his body, flying, or sailing even, to the West… leaving the hollow husk of his body in Sam's lap. But not entirely hollow. _Not all else_. As Merry and Pippin had spoken of the death of Boromir, and their ordeal with the orcs, Frodo had retreated - or perhaps been overtaken, swamped by his own memories of evil. Of rotten skin and tusks and screaming cries. _There is no veil _he had told Sam, and, clearer than ever: _I am naked in the dark_.

The recollection of those words brought back more memories to Sam… that's how he had found him, found Frodo, when all hope had seemed to be lost. _Naked in the dark_. The red light in that tower had made Frodo's bare skin glow, but it had not been comforting to Sam - rather the light had made it seem as if the whip weal on his master's side had spread to cover his whole body.

White. Frodo's body was white now, white like Galadriel's phial, and yet roiling with black, the shades shifting as trees above them chased the moonlight across his still figure. Sam began to hum, softly, a tune that had once been one among many others that the gardener had sung, clearly and joyfully, trimming hedges or digging rhythmically in the garden at Bag End, while the young master of the hole had sat on the porch, watching the sun-kissed figure and laughing. The tune was familiar now, almost as familiar as the dark hair, the straight nose, and (Sam's heart clenched at this) the maimed hand curled protectively on Frodo's chest.

_In western lands beneath the Sun  
The flowers my rise in Spring  
The trees may bud, the waters run,  
The merry finches sing._

The whispers of the trees around them seemed to clarify then, calm and listen, and yes… almost they seemed to sing along with him, and he smiled as memories of the garden at Bag End, a lifetime of memories, burned within him. His warm hand rested on Frodo's cold forehead. He closed his eyes.

_Though here at journey's end I lie  
In darkness buried deep,  
Beyond all towers strong and high,  
Beyond all mountains steep,  
Above all shadows rides the Sun  
And Stars for ever dwell:_

"I will not say the Day is done, nor bid the Stars farewell."

Sam opened his eyes and looked down at Frodo. Blue eyes (_how could I have thought him hollow?_) gazed up at him, and the moonlight glistened on lips moistened to speak. _No image of moon or star is left to me_… the words were whispered in Sam's head, hoarsely, despair tainting the beloved voice. And Sam smiled as Frodo looked up at him, as if his master was seeing him for the first time. The reflection of Sam himself, crowned with stars, glowed in Frodo's eyes.

Holding his master's head tenderly between his hands - so dark against the moon stroked skin on either side of Frodo's face - he leant down slowly and in one smooth movement pressed his lips to Frodo's, feeling the warmth of exhalation from his master's nose on his throat, the curling hair tickling his the hollow of his neck. He tasted the velvet bitterness of shadow, but it soon gave way and softened to sweetness, sunlight… the Shire. The garden of Bag End, blooming with laughter. The lips smiled against his own and he withdrew again, leaning back into the rough bark of the tree behind him.

"Well well well, what have we here? Four hobbits and a wizard, and in the gardens of men? This must be a new age indeed!" a rough, jovial voice exclaimed, and Sam laughed as he opened his eyes to the sight of the squat, bearded dwarf and the tall, sleek elf beside him.

"You can talk, Gimli!" Pippin's voice piped as he sat up, leaves tangled in his unruly hair. "Oh, and good evening Legolas."

Frodo laughed, the sound rising up above the whisper of the trees, filling the forest, and embracing the mithril disc of the moon above them.


End file.
